The Chenel Cup, the competition organised by the Community of Madrid and the Fundación Toro de Lidia, in which 18 modest bullfighters compete for the chance to stay afloat and, above all, to make it onto the poster for 12 October in Las Ventas, already has the two finalists who will return to the ring in Móstoles this Sunday: Molina and Víctor Hernández. That was the decision of the jury, but the third swordsman, the Mexican Luis David Adame, did the same as his companions – he even cut off an ear – and came away with a handful of noses.
The decision of those who have to judge is respectable, of course, but the system of selection is impertinent: a semi-final with three and a final with two. The three bullfighters who reached the semi-final deserved to be in the final, and that would have been the fairest decision.
The bullfight, three soft and noble bulls from Adolfo Martín, and three others from Zacarías Moreno, one violent, another dull and the third mobile, but none of them classy, did not contribute to the success of the event. In addition, the wind blew strongly, and those in charge of the ring, the president first, did not realize the dust that could form as soon as the first bull came out into the ring.
It was not a cloud of dust, but a cloud of dust that sometimes made it difficult to clearly distinguish the movements of the bull and the bullfighter. The worst part fell to Adame, who opened the ring and swallowed several kilos of yellow dirt. Before the second bull came out, they sprayed it, and it was Molina who took the reins of the hose. And later, halfway through the bullfight, they had to stop again to return to the water and calm the dust. A disastrous lack of foresight.
Adame, the most experienced of the three, and the most experienced, unfazed by the tremendous difficulty of the wind and the ground in front of a first bull that was as noble as it was dull. He received the fourth with a long change of knees in the third, and with the muleta he showed himself determined and committed to a mobile animal.
Molina and Hernández went to the bullring gates in their first engagements and received their bulls on their knees. Molina’s bull was spirited, violent and with a slow charge, and the torero showed courage in an uneven performance. Hernández, for his part, began the faena with the muleta in statuesque styles and was able to demonstrate his good concept in a couple of natural passes before a somersault without consequences.
Molina suffered another inconsequential catch in the fifth, and he excelled in a final series of natural passes with his feet together. Hernández closed the afternoon against a adolfo very soft and noble, but it allowed him to draw some tasteful muletazos with his left hand. Marcos Prieto and Diego Valladar dismounted after pairing that last sixth bull, the same as Caco Ramos and Fernando Sánchez did with the second.
All three killed very badly, with an inability unbecoming of someone who calls himself a bullfighter; for such an important reason, a blind eye to all three or all three to go home. The rest is impertinence.
Martín-Moreno/Adame, Molina, Hernández
Three bulls Adolfo Martin, first, fifth and sixth, meek; the first is bland and outcast, the other two are very soft and noble; and three of Zacharias Morenosecond, third and fourth, meek; the first with temper and violence, the second dull and the third with mobility. All six were well presented.
Luis David Adame: low thrust (ovation); metisaca and forward and perpendicular thrust (ear).
Molina: _notice_ puncture and somewhat detached thrust (ear); two punctures, almost completely crossed _notice_ and a madness (ovation).
Victor Hernandez: prick _notice_ prick and thrust (ovation); _notice_ lunge fall and lying, half lying, a descabello _second _notice_ and a descabello (return to the ring).
Mostoles Square (Madrid)June 29. Chenel Cup semi-final. Less than half full.